Male Student-Athlete: Owen J. Roberts’ Rosato focuses on sports and academics

By Chris Goldberg
Phillylacrosse.com, posted 5/3/08

Please excuse senior Dan Rosato if he forgets whether to pick up his lacrosse stick, a basketball or his soccer cleats in the morning.

After all, he excelled in all three sports at Owen J. Roberts and still manages to maintain his status on the Honor Roll with a 3.47 GPA.

“It’s tough balancing all of the activities and school,” said Rosato, who has earned 11 varsity letters. “You figure what you need to focus on and you make the time. For sports, I am always focused on whatever sport is in season, and I put all my focus on that sport.
“That helps me improve in each sport.”

Rosato, a midfielder in lacrosse, also was a Pennsylvania Soccer Coaches Association All-State forward in soccer last fall and a two-year starter on the Wildcats’ basketball team.

In lacrosse, he is a four-year starter at middie and one of the top scorers on a Wildcat team that is leading the Pioneer Athletic Conference with a 9-1 record (11-3 overall).

Rosato will attend Elizabethtown on a Merit Scholarship and study engineering in the honors program. His success in sports on and off the field has also earned him the Laxzilla/Phillylacrosse.com Male Student-Athlete of the Week.

“He is a tremendous athlete, and a three-sport athlete,” said OJR coach Jeff Neese. “His determination and drive have brought the team to the top of the league.”

Rosato said his favorite sport is lacrosse and he will play only lacrosse at Elizabethtown.

“I feel that playing soccer and basketball helps me with lacrosse,” he said. “Lacrosse uses skills from all the other sports. It helps with vision from playing basketball on the court and having to think quickly like you do in soccer.”

Rosato is hoping to utilize these skills for OJR’s playoff drive. The Wildcats are hosting the Pioneer Conference playoffs May 14 and May 16 and are on target to gain the tournament’s top seed.

Last year, Owen J. Roberts fell to Spring-Ford in overtime in the league finals, but Rosato said this year’s team is beginning to jell.

“We want to be in first place going into the playoffs,” Rosato said. “That would give us the best chance of winning the PAC-10 championship. I think we have become more of a team than in the past and that’s definitely helped our play a lot.”